Infrastructure makes up some three per cent of the surface area of the Netherlands. Pollution control legislation means that the infrastructure's sphere of influence is greater by a factor of 10. Thirty per cent of the Netherlands has only limited use as a result and is informed by a few programmes only. The aim of our research is to render the negatively affected surface area accessible to every programme. A quartet of models offer concrete solutions.

An infra-ecology transposes the various forms of nuisance or pollution using a process of dispersal, concentration and absorption by production crops or production landscapes. Living, working and leisure profit directly from the release of energy, the crops and of course the optimum accessibility of the site.

In BP-Koolzaad, a network of filling stations along motorways, energy crops take up the excess emission of carbon dioxide. Rape, algae, beetroot and willow then produce enough fuel for the entire motorized Netherlands. The oxygen released in photosynthesis is used in the combustion process. Petrol pumps are now not just part of a programme generated by infrastructure, but go on to express the agricultural landscape.

The leisure resort of Spa-Spar is sited at the intersection of waterways and motorways. There, the polluted water is cleansed in a dome using ozone generated by the reaction in direct sunlight between the odour of pine and nitrogen oxide from exhaust fumes. The clean water flows past the motel by way of spring-water baths and back to the river through a rocky pine forest.

Wave Circuit is encountered at the convergence of waterway and railway. A forthcoming new railway track such as the Betuwe rail freight link is deposited in a tunnel tray half sunk in the water. The vibrations made by passing trains and inland shipping create waves that are in turn converted into energy by a generator. This process can provide fifty floating houses with electricity. Owing to the seasonal change in yield from the river, the density of housing varies between 8 houses per hectare in winter and 15 per hectare in summer.

Urban sites are where you would find Kas-Kantoor, a combination of offices and a glass nursery house landscape. In this model, all emissions from road traffic are filtered and used to help grow the plants. Carbon monoxide enriches the soil, small particles clean the water, while the building itself is cooled by the absorption of sulphur dioxide. The glasshouses function as mediator between motorway and office and provide a clean, green, productive work climate.

Infrastructure can function as a guiding element of spatial planning, stitching urbanization, environment and production landscapes together. The nuisance component diminishes by being converted into a new product, produced by the infrastructure itself. This relegates restrictions in mobility through nuisance to a thing of the past.

Place of education: Rotterdam
Specialization: architectuur/architecture
Tutors: Floris Alkemade, Jurjen Zeinstra, Michelle Provoost, Paul Bosse & Bert van Meggelen